 Okay, so this is one of the few pictures of Philippe which is available widely. It is in the collection of Oberwollfauer, there are many pictures of mathematicians. This one has been taken in Bonn in 1967, so certainly I was not there because I was a first-year student at the University of Technique at that time. But I'm sure that with Philippe we met a number of times for the Albert Stargung in Bonn because this is really one of the places where mathematicians would meet. At that time, in a sense, Bonn was one of the places where mathematicians all around the world would meet. More than Paris, actually. And so I think definitely if I want to be sure at the place where I met Philippe for the first time it was to one of the Albert Stargung. But then just to give you a typical situation in which I really exchange with Philippe extensively, it is this conference. So first of all about this conference, maybe a few of you know that the year 2000 was the world year of mathematics. It was due to the fantastic dedication of Jacques Louis Lyons, who managed to convince that the 2000 should be the world year of mathematics. Then why do I show this? You see the logo there. The logo has been designed at IHS by Marie-Claude Verne. She won the international competition for that. So it was for the Institute a very good sign of capacity of being visible worldwide. Anyway, I want to talk about this conference. So this conference was organized by the American Mathematical Society in August 2000 in Los Angeles. And it was called the mathematical challenges of the 21st century. At that time, Philippe was the head of mathematics at the National Science Foundation. And then it was definitely very natural for him to attend such a conference. And basically we attended this conference, both of us, sitting next to each other for almost every lecture. And we discussed the lectures, which ones would be important, what are really the new paths and so on. Particularly I remember the insistence of Philippe to say the next will be data analysis. And I can tell you in 2000 this was not obvious at all. But he kept saying that. So the list, I continue the list of speakers, don't look at them. A few of them are professor at IHS like Calencon or Maxim Konsevich. But the thing I want to show you about this conference, these speakers, don't look at the speakers. I don't know how the selection committee worked. But if you look among the speakers in black you see people who got either the Apple price or the show price. So this is the first half. This is the second half. It's pretty good for a selection committee that about one half of old speakers got one of the most prestigious prices created a few years after that. The Apple price was created in 2003 and the show price was created in 2004. So it's kind of an amazing situation. Anyway, so that's what I wanted to show you. But one thing also I want to share with you is the smile of Philip, which was taken during the European Congress in Madrid in 2006. And I'm not the person sitting next to him. The person sitting next to him is Harry Lapkev. But this way of trying to convince you, as you see in this picture, is definitely something I shared and took advantage with many, many conversations. And in particular during the time Philip was the head of NSF in Washington. And I know that Natalie remembers our visits to the NSF during this time. I come to Jim and Marilyn, whom I met as was mentioned by Philip. I met Jim in 72 for the first time. And he brought me to Stony Brook in a very difficult family decision, because on the 15th of June I had an invitation to take a job in Stony Brook for the first of September. Well, we decided our daughter, Veronica, who is here, was already born. Let's go. And at that time I must say the department in Stony Brook was completely extraordinary. There were 14 differential geometries on the faculty. Among them, Jeff Chieger, Shingtung Yao, Blaine was not yet there. She came a bit later. Marie-Louise was not yet there. She came a bit later. But still, I mean, the seminar in differential geometry, Detlef Gommel was there, Wolfgang Meyer, Charles Lapp was there, Axe, John Thorpe was there. It was incredible, John Milsen and so on. So definitely this year in the US was very, very important for me. One of the reasons is that after some time I realized that maybe differential geometry, as I was taught by Marcel Berger, was definitely a good subject in which one could do good mathematics. I doubted a little bit because the spirit at that time in France was a little bit if you were not doing algebraic geometry or number theory, you're not really a mathematician. So anyway, after all, I thought maybe I can still do mathematics. And so that was my first encounter with Jim. And then later on there was another instance actually on that year, the spring of 73, which was very, very important, which was the attempt because Cien Yang was a professor of physics in the physics department that's from the book. And then he suggested there should be a seminar jointly between mathematicians and physicists on gauge theories, which was a new topic coming on. But after three meetings we decided there was really nothing to be done because mathematicians were obsessed by global questions and physicists were obsessed by local questions. And there was nothing to do. So we stopped. And actually just a few years later it became a very, very hot topic because finally people recognized they had really something to do together. And on this that was another opportunity to meet Jim because with Blaine Lawson we provided a result which quite a number of people were looking for and we were inspired by some work of Jim. And we offered him a possibility that the announcement in the proceeding of National Academy of Science would be signed by Jim, Blaine, and myself. And Jim first said, no, but I didn't contribute to your paper. But he said, no, but you inspired us. At that time Jim was not a rich person. He was just about to leave mathematics. But I know he appreciated this willingness on our part to recognize his inspiration and we did publish the announcement with the three names. So that was my second critical moment with Jim, of course. By the way, during the summer of 73 I also computed for him the second variation of John Simon's functional. But that was an exercise. He was struggling with it so I could do it. But so this has been repeated meetings later on and of course because Jim and Marilyn have been so generous to support mathematics all together in particular IHS and then they really contributed fantastically to the development and capacity of the Institute to really have more stability by having more investors in its function. So to all of you, thank you so much for what you've done to support the Institute and in particular how much you change my life. Because in the case of Jim it really completely changed my landscape in terms of mathematics and in the case of Philippe for sure we had these long conversations repeatedly but each time I was impressed by your vision and all American mathematicians will remember what you did when you were the head of mathematics at NSF which handed up more than doubling the budget of mathematics because you convinced really the director of NSF at that time and that really mathematics should be a priority for the NSF which it was not but then it became. So the second part of my speech today will be dedicated to the issue of the role of permanent professors at IHS and more generally permanent professors in research institutes. I must say that if you look at the extraordinary history of the Institute definitely it was shaped by its permanent, they were not alone they were indeed inviting a number of people and they were supported by a number of students or more senior collaborators but for sure the choice which has been made initially by the founders of the Institute to really attract to the Institute absolutely extraordinary mathematicians made the difference and so it shows that having the capacity to attract people in their most creative period on a permanent chair makes a difference and therefore the donation which had been made by Clarice and Philipp on one hand and Marilyn and Jim on the other hand to create a new permanent chair is definitely an extraordinary contribution for the future of an Institute because it's exactly with this type of profile that the Institute has a chance of being different and therefore to continue to have a significant influence on the development of mathematics but when we talk about mathematics I want to insist for myself to the importance for the Institute to have two legs one is mathematics, the other one is theoretical physics and I think the necessity for the Institute to have both fields properly represented with permanent professors is absolutely fundamental so the first chair bears my name which for which I'm extremely honoured a bit humbled is definitely going to a mathematician but there is no limitation to that so it could happen of course I hope you stay all your career so you will be here for a long time but I appreciated very much the generosity that there was no strings attached to who would get the chair a person should be just the best possible person for the Institute which I think is very very important so just to insist on the originality of the Institute of course its format is very peculiar, it's small it's definitely by definition people who are getting permanent professors should be different should have really a fantastic potential and particularly the potential of reshaping parts of their field could be mathematics, could be theoretical physics I must say that if you look back at the people who have been here it has been actually extraordinarily successful from that point of view and therefore the whole responsibility of the directors Emmanuel at the moment is to make this extraordinary path continue but it has to continue to be extraordinary because the only reason for Institute of this kind to exist is if they are really different and therefore what makes the difference always are people so you have to identify the right people you have to convince them to stay so Dustin I hope you stay here and you know in the history of the Institute some stayed very long some stayed not so long but I think it's extremely important to have this possibility that is to have the means to support people properly of course things have changed a lot since the creation of the Institute maybe to remind you the situation when IHS was created in 1958 mathematics was not in bad shape in France but not so much in Paris most of the great mathematicians were not in Paris they were in Strasbourg, they were in Nancy they were elsewhere they came to Paris later in physics if I my opinion is more or less copied from what Louis Michel told me that he felt that the physics was so bad in France that if you wanted to be trained properly at that time I'm going back to the 50s you better go to a different country and Louis Michel was trained in the UK some others were trained in the US but the feeling of many physicists, young physicists was that really good physics was not done in France which was not good and of course IHS played a role in this reconnection of French mathematics and French physics with the highest possible levels IHS of course is a small place so its contribution is also connected to its size but in the end I think it led to a really remarkable redevelopment of mathematics and physics in France and I think IHS played an important role because it was possible to invite in France remarkable people by the way, intentionally to IHS I would like to mention a little bit here Cécile David Moret she played a very important role at some point to connect Leon Mochan who wanted to create IHS with Robert Pine Oppenheimer in the IS in Princeton and at that time she dreamed because she married an American to really give a chance for French physics to redevelop and she created the center which is now called Le Zooche which has been an extraordinary place to train physicists in France and to bring to France the absolute best physicist in the world and at some point initially the idea would be that Le Zooche would be the summer location of IHS finally it didn't happen IHS developed independently Le Zooche developed remarkably well the extraordinary dedication of Cécile but it's interesting to see that two remarkably successful institutions were born with similar spirits namely to try to be different and try to develop things with their own internal logic independently of the system which was in place so Le Zooche has been very successful I think IHS has also been very successful but again it came from the determination and the vision of people who thought that this institution could in the end develop for IHS as a foundation of course very critical of finding the financial resources that's why the institute has been so grateful to all the donors who really accompanied it accompanied it for many years in particular Marilyn and Jim have been fantastic to help us at many stages in particular in this final stage with the extraordinary donation of Clare Lise and Philippe Tondeur to match it and really make it possible if you add up the two contributions to really have a stable funding for a permanent professor position which they decided will bear my name Thank you very much